Are Yorkshire Tea Bags Compostable

If you d like to ask us any questions about any of this or about any of the materials we use to make yorkshire tea please do get in touch at hello yorkshiretea co uk.

Are yorkshire tea bags compostable. The full answer though is more complex then you might think as they currently vary in materials across manufacturers. We re starting to switch over now and the aim is that all our uk tea bags will have switched by the end. 25 is an oil based plastic sealing material called polypropylene but we re working on a switch to a renewable plant based compostable bioplastic called polylactic acid pla which is made from cornstarch. Yorkshire tea began switching to renewable plant based material in its tea bag seals after a successful trial run in may.

The plastic we ve been using to seal our tea bags is going to be replaced with a renewable plant based material. That should be up to 50 by the end of june and by january 2021 all uk yorkshire tea yorkshire gold yorkshire tea decaf and yorkshire tea for hard water will have switched. Yorkshire tea is currently making the switch to renewable plant based material. Check the table of manufacturers below to find if yours are compostable or not.

Yorkshire tea do amazing things for the environment such as working with 4000 kenyan farmers as well as british school children to plant over 2 million trees so don t be too hard on them. A mix of wood pulp and either abaca a kind of banana plant and rayon made from cellulose waste. For example when yorkshire tea first tried to create compostable tea bags their bags fell apart in people s cups. Pla tea bags are industrially compostable which means they can go in food waste or garden waste bins for the council to compost.

All tea bags in the uk will be biodegradable by the end of 2019 according. The general answer to whether you can compost tea bags would be no.